Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles Book 1)

by Penelope, L.

  They hadn’t brought blankets or sleeping packs in their haste to escape the fire so they curled up on the ground next to each other, using the lumpy sack as a pillow.

  The evasiveness of the Lagrimari, the lies told about her father, and Rozyl’s bitter hostility filled her mind.

  “Why do you think they’ve really come?” Jasminda whispered. Jack lay with an arm behind his head. In the dim light, she could barely make out his profile.

  “The women and children likely are seeking a better life.”

  Jasminda sighed. “I guess better is relative.”

  “But the Keepers,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “Whatever their true purpose, at least we have the same goal. I hope we will be able to fight against the True Father together.”

  Jack’s hope and determination were fueling him. He had something to fight for.

  All she had now were ashes where a whole life used to be.

  She closed her eyes and stopped just short of praying not to wake up again.

  Jack’s arms were wrapped around something warm and soft. As he opened his eyes, any hint of drowsiness fled as a spark tickled behind his ribs. Jasminda lay curled on her side, her back pressed against his chest. Her head was tucked just under his chin, and his heart sped as he watched the rise and fall of her gentle breaths.

  He brushed her hair back, letting his fingers get caught in its tangled softness. Her scent was enticing, soothing, and he lay for a moment breathing it in. Once again, thoughts inappropriate to their current situation stole into his mind. The curve of her buttocks grazed his groin, and he inched backward so as not to scandalize her with his growing erection. The floor of a cave was a location even more devoid of romance than the army barracks, and yet he had a hard time reining in his mind.

  Light footsteps echoed outside the cave entrance. He removed an arm from around Jasminda and palmed the pistol he’d left within easy reach, keeping it down by his side. Though he had trusted Darvyn, he could not be completely certain that these enemies of his enemy were, in fact, his friends. Especially not when the Lagrimari they’d met yesterday were Keepers in more ways than one. They may be followers of the Queen and wish to see her promise of return kept, but they held secrets, as well.

  Lantern light brightened the entrance as a curly head appeared—a head much lower than he’d expected. Osar stood gripping the lantern shakily. Jack released his weapon. The boy’s huge eyes glittered, and he beckoned Jack forward with one hand.

  “Jasminda.” He shook her gently, not letting go of her shoulder as she rolled over and stretched. “We have a visitor.” He nodded in the child’s direction, and Jasminda sat up yawning.

  Osar motioned again for them to follow before disappearing down the hall. They gathered their things and joined the others in the larger cave. The fire had been put out, lanterns had been lit, and most people were packed and ready to go. The armed Keepers and elders stood in the center, and Gerda’s quiet tones carried over Rozyl’s hard voice and wild gesticulations.

  “I know that was the plan, but it’s just not possible now,” Rozyl said.

  Gerda shook her head. “We follow the course. That is what we agreed on.”

  “That was before we discovered no one can sing in these blasted caves.”

  “What’s going on?” Jack asked.

  Rozyl rolled her eyes but, surprisingly, answered him. “I sent out scouts to determine the way through this maze of tunnels, but not one of us can use Earthsong in here. For some reason, the mountain seems to be blocking us.”

  Jasminda came up next to him, a frown marring her face. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Of course it doesn’t. And it also makes no sense to travel down a tunnel we can’t feel or see the ending of. We could be lost inside this mountain for years if we take the wrong track. We must wait out the storm and take the path up top.”

  “No.” Gerda’s voice was calm but her expression immobile.

  “The instructions were clear,” Turwig said. The old man would not meet Jack’s eye, and he wondered if Turwig blamed him for whatever may have happened to Darvyn. “We must go through.”

  “And how do you suppose we do that?” Rozyl asked.

  “Try again,” said Turwig.

  Rozyl’s face twisted, and she pushed past them, deliberately knocking into Jasminda. She wobbled but caught herself by slamming her palms on a knee-high boulder jutting out of the ground.

  “Watch yourself,” Jack bit out to Rozyl’s retreating back. The woman grumbled out what must have been a Lagrimari curse he hadn’t heard before. He turned to Jasminda as she righted herself and brushed off her hands.

  A fissure marred the polished surface of the boulder. It had sliced her palm, embedding a sliver of rock in her skin. Jack grabbed her hand to inspect the damage.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, pulling away. His arm felt heavy, his hand strangely empty as she refused his help. But it was nothing. The bruise on her cheek was far worse, and she hadn’t even complained about it or bothered to heal it.

  He clenched his fists and forced his feet to stay rooted, to not follow after the unpleasant Rozyl and give her a piece of his mind. He’d expected to see a mirror of his emotions in Jasminda. The murderous expression she'd had the night before as they’d disparaged her father had made Jack oddly proud of her. But now, her skin was ashen and she looked haunted.

  “Wh-what happens when you try to sing?” Her voice was weak, breathy and light, not the full-bodied, sensual tone he’d grown used to in just these few days. Concern furrowed his brow.

  Turwig spoke up. “They say their Song calls out but nothing’s there to answer it. Like the world has disappeared. Try it yourself if you like, child.”

  Jasminda shot Jack a worried glance, then closed her eyes. Long, dark lashes brushed her cheeks and her face slackened. But instead of taking on the dreamy quality she’d worn when healing him, her face contorted in pain. Her scream tore through the air, endless and chilling. It froze his heart, but his arms reached out of their own accord to catch her when she collapsed.

  The beating of drums thunders along the walls, pulsing and jittering, almost louder than the pounding of my chest. The thrum thrum thrum beats in time to the chants of my name, called over and over again until it echoes deep in the recesses of every tunnel, every crack and crevice in the mountain.

  It was my name Oval's deep voice called at the Choosing.

  It is a great honor to be chosen.

  So as I kneel on my hands and knees while Mother shears the hair from my scalp, why do I feel such betrayal?

  She wraps me in the ceremonial coverings. Chatters on about how proud she is and what this will mean for the little ones, the sisters and brothers I will never see again. The one I will never meet still lodged in her belly.

  My sacrifice will protect them from the dangers threatening our caves. Our family will be held in high esteem.

  I am scrubbed raw in the hot springs. My newly uncovered head is tender and aching. Blood comes away on my fingers when I rub at my baldness.

  Mother pierces me with a glance. You must not waste it, she says, eyes darting around to make sure no one else has seen.

  Once your blood is chosen, it no longer belongs to you.

  The drums and chanting only grow louder as I follow my family to the gathering. I wish my aching head would pound hard enough to tear it from my body.

  Not my body. Not anymore.

  Oval is there, his eyes pale with age, leached of the fiery color they held in his youth. My eyes will never lighten another shade. My skin will never grow loose and gather in bunches, showing proof of my wisdom. I will be fourteen summers forevermore.

  The chanting is frenzied now, the noise unbearable.

  I am laid on the smooth stone altar. It vibrates beneath my skin. Mother does not shed so much as a tear for me. Her smile cracks me in two. I am not her daughter.

  Not anymore.

  I am everyone’s daughter now. I belong to th
e Folk, to the caves, to the drums.

  When the blade comes, I do not close my eyes. The pounding in my chest fades as the sharpened stone pierces my flesh.

  My blood belongs to them all now.

  Jasminda clutched at her chest, pulling at the neck of her dress only to find her skin smooth and unmarred. Her breath came in shallow bursts. Her vision swam. There was no knife plunging between her breasts. No warm blood fleeing her body. No odd, chanting crowd watching, enraptured.

  When her eyes focused, an anxious face filled her view. Firelit eyes regarded her and a familiar scent filled her nostrils. A man’s arms surrounded her. This was safety. Comfort. She knew him, though she couldn’t quite recall how. His face relaxed as she stared up at him, hypnotized by the color of his eyes. Voices spoke nearby, but she did not recognize the language.

  “What happened?” she said.

  He frowned. “I should ask you that. You collapsed. Why are you speaking Elsiran?”

  She did not understand his question but caught sight of her hands. Held them up in front of her face. They were back to their normal hue, not the sickly, almost colorless gray they’d been before. “I died.”

  “I can assure you, you did not,” he said, his mouth turned down at the edges. He brushed her hair from her forehead, then sat back as she struggled up to a sitting position.

  “No, not me. I was someone else.”

  “Someone who died?”

  “Yes.” Her body was heavier now than it had been. Larger and thicker.

  “What is she saying?” an aged voice called out in the strange language. She was surprised that she could now understand it. She looked up into a disapproving face that was both familiar and not. People were gathered around her, concern in their eyes, but the only one she recognized was the man. His name danced just at the edge of her memory.

  “The mountain demanded my blood.” She repeated the words in the language the old man had spoken, testing it out on her tongue. It tasted wrong somehow, as though the syllables didn’t fit together properly.

  “Did she hit her head?” a woman said.

  “Give her some space.”

  “Try to sing again, child.”

  “No! That’s what got her in this state to begin with.”

  The voices went back and forth. She couldn’t hold on to them. Her vision swam again, but she didn’t want to go back to that other place, the place where she was just a sacrificed girl, only worth the weight of her blood.

  Something pulsed inside her, something demanding attention. She closed her eyes to focus, and it grew with her observation. Surprised, she opened her eyes again. The man watched her intently. She reached out a hand to him, and he did not hesitate to take it. She focused once more on that little pulse inside her. It swelled, unfurling itself like the wings of a bird and taking flight toward some larger rhythm. The rhythm scared her, but it was also beautiful. She plunged into it and let it consume her, leaving her in a darkness far greater than the one behind her eyelids.

  “She’s coming out of it.”

  “Again.”

  Swimming to the surface this time was easy.

  She opened her eyes to Jack’s fraught face. “Did you die again?”

  “No,” she said, this time in Lagrimari. How could she not have understood the language before? She sat up, putting herself just out of reach of the cradle Jack’s arms provided. Embarrassment tinged her cheeks.

  “You’re not going to pass out again?” he asked. His touch calmed some of the mortification. His palm against the back of her neck was a balm. She longed to lean into it, but the ground was cold and hard beneath her, and she was self-conscious about what had just happened.

  She’d never fallen unconscious from singing before. And to have it happen not once but twice? The elders hovered over her, and she rose on shaky legs.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Can you understand us?”

  “What happened?”

  Jack kept a stabilizing hand at the small of her back. A tiny point of contact, but one that anchored her. “I saw— No, I was— I was one of the Cavefolk. I’d been chosen to be sacrificed to the mountain.”

  While the others looked at her dubiously, Jack frowned. “The Cavefolk practiced human sacrifice? And you were there, you say?”

  She nodded. “I wasn’t me, though. I was a girl being led up to the altar. A girl they killed.” She shuddered, thinking back to the vision. “Mostly I just remember the feelings. The betrayal. The anger. The fear. They were using my blood for magic, a protection spell.”

  “The Cavefolk had magic? Earthsong?” Jack’s voice was incredulous.

  “No, something else. Something darker. When I was . . . there . . . my Song was silent. The magic needed the sacrifice.”

  Everyone in the cave fell quiet. Jack appeared lost in thought. Gerda and Turwig gave her piteous looks that said they didn’t quite believe her. She wasn’t mad; she knew what she’d seen.

  The Cavefolk were among the original inhabitants of Elsira, from a time before recorded history. Just a few tools and skeletons had survived to tell their story. Her books had not included much about them other than the fact they dwelled in the mountains. Elsira had been a harsh and unforgiving terrain, a rocky desert that barely supported life. Before they mysteriously died out, the Cavefolk and the nomadic clans eked out a meager existence. And then the Founders arrived—the Lord and Lady from some distant, unknown place—who transformed Elsira into the lush, beautiful land it was today.

  They and their descendants ruled for millennia, years of peace and bounty. The Queen Who Sleeps was last in their line, but She was betrayed by the True Father and cast into a deep sleep. Her last act was to create the Mantle, protecting her people from the worst of the True Father’s power.

  The fate of the Founders and the Cavefolk was lost to history. Jasminda had long been fascinated by the mystery, as had many scholars. She’d ordered and read every book on the subject she could get her hands on, but the secrets of the ancients remained hidden.

  She kneaded her forehead, searching her memory for anything that would bring what she’d seen into focus. Why that vision? Why her?

  “As long as you’re all right,” Gerda said, patting her arm.

  “Can you sing, child?” Turwig asked, his brow drawn low over his eyes.

  She drew in a shaky breath. Though part of her was afraid to try again, another, bigger part was curious as to what would happen this time. The foreboding she’d felt when first entering the cave was still there, but curiosity won out over the fear. She opened herself once more to Earthsong. The normally strong pull of the power was near overwhelming; the tide tried to pull her under, harder than ever before.

  “I feel untethered. I can barely hold on.”

  “Can you lead us through the tunnels or not, girl?” Lyngar snapped. Jack shot a warning glance in the old man’s direction, but Jasminda saw it as if from far away.

  Her attention was on her awareness of the cave, the tunnels beyond, and the mountain surrounding them. Ghosts of the ancient inhabitants brushed the edge of her senses. There was power in this mountain, but it hummed with a different pattern than Earthsong.

  Still, a thread of life wove through this place. Insects and creatures too small to see, and mosslike vegetation that needed no light. She pulled the energy inside her, and it formed a path, though faint, that led through to the other side of the mountain.

  She let the power slide away. “I can sense the route, but it’s long. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay connected and sing for the whole journey, though.”

  “Of course the feeble halfling is the one we must follow,” Rozyl said from her position against the wall. Jack’s breathing turned heavy as he glared, lighting a spark of satisfaction within Jasminda at his reaction.

  “Perhaps she can link with someone,” Turwig suggested.

  Rozyl gave him a look that could shear the shell off a beetle. “Why can she sing and no one else? What is wrong
with her? I’m not linking with her.” Jasminda flinched internally at the bite in the woman’s voice, though she had no desire to link with Rozyl either.

  “What’s linking?” Jack asked.

  Gerda patiently began to explain. “It’s when two Earthsingers share their connection. They—”

  “It’s when one Singer gives control of their entire Song to another to do with as they please,” Rozyl interjected. “And that is not going to happen.”

  “It’s a sharing of power,” Gerda continued, “but only one Singer can be in control. It must be done voluntarily, of the giver’s free will. If we still had our Songs, we would do it.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Lyngar spat, and Jasminda tensed. She had linked with Papa when she was young and still learning. He’d shown her how to control her power through the link, but she could not imagine linking with a stranger. To do so was to become extremely vulnerable to another. It was like letting someone into her soul.

  The elders and Rozyl bickered over what to do. The four armed Keepers were the only adults who had not been forced to give their Songs in tribute to the True Father. Jasminda shuddered to imagine life without her Song; it was a part of her, weak though it was.

  A small hand slipped into her own. Osar’s round face beamed up at her. She squeezed his hand, and he leaned in, resting his head against her leg.

  “You would link with me, wouldn’t you?” she asked, smoothing down his hair. “You’re not afraid?” He shook his head, then offered her his other hand, which was closed in a fist.

  “What do you have there?”

  He unfurled tiny fingers to reveal a shoot of green with delicate white petals sparking out of it.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked, incredulous, picking up the tiny flower. It could not have grown in the cave, and with the snow outside it was doubtful he’d brought it in with him. Yet here it was. Something beautiful and impossible in the midst of the bleakness. “Thank you.”